# gift link — RSS Amplifier Recent posts from the 3 feeds in the RSS Amplifier directory that cover gift link. Page: Feed: --- ## [Disney’s ABC Sues Trump’s FCC Over Challenge to Its Broadcast License](https://www.wsj.com/business/media/disneys-abc-sues-fcc-over-challenge-to-its-broadcast-licenses-64e8f794?st=XTL4tA) _2026-08-18 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ Joe Flint, reporting for The Wall Street Journal (gift link): Walt Disney’s ABC has sued the Federal Communications Commission alleging the agency’s efforts to challenge its broadcast licenses and regulate its talk show “The View” are illegal and an effort to quash speech the Trump administration finds objectionable. In a suit filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, ABC said,… ## [Apple Gives Legal Middle Finger to DOJ Challenge on Apple’s July Discovery Win](https://9to5mac.com/2026/08/17/apple-dojs-latest-challenge-in-antitrust-case-fails-at-every-level/) _2026-08-18 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ Marcus Mendes at 9to5Mac has a fun update on U.S. v. Apple , the ill-considered antitrust case started by the Biden administration. A bunch of what the DOJ argues are anticompetitive features in Apple’s platforms, Apple argues are in fact privacy and security related. Back in July Apple won a big discovery ruling — Apple asked for documents from 14 federal agencies — including the CIA, FBI,… ## [Organized Thieves Are Targeting AI Server Chips With Violent Highway Hijackings](https://www.wired.com/story/the-worst-ive-ever-seen-cargo-thieves-are-turning-violent-in-pursuit-of-ai-hardware/) _2026-08-18 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ Paresh Dave and Aarian Marshall, reporting for Wired ( News+ link in case Wired hits you with their paywall): The incidents involved two different shipments of high-value technology traveling from Silicon Valley to Southern California, according to Pachuca, who says he learned about the thefts from law enforcement authorities. Each truck was tailed by private security professionals driving… ## [‘Dickover’ Makes It Into The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/18/dickovers-baggravation-botiquette-18-new-words-tech-hellscape) _2026-08-18 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ Stuart Heritage, writing for The Guardian, under the splendid headline “Dickovers, Baggravation and Botiquette: 18 New Words to Describe Our Tech Hellscape”: The “dickover” is the scourge of the modern age. Coined in May by John Gruber, a tech writer, it is defined as “a modal panel, popover, or curtain presented by a website or app, deliberately obscuring its own content to frustrate the user”.… ## [OpenAI Pot Complains That Google Kettle Is Black](https://x.com/thsottiaux/status/2083373529081291076?s=12) _2026-08-18 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ Thibault Sottiaux, the OpenAI genius in charge of Codex and the new ChatGPT Homer Simpson car, on Twitter/X: I don’t come often to GMail \[ sic \] (OpenAI is a Slack company), but I swear, every time I do open it, there is a new button somewhere around the top right corner. I mean, he’s right about Google’s zero-taste just-keep-cramming-shit-in approach to Gmail, but it’s almost hard to believe he… ## [Nature Is Healing: MacOS 27 Golden Gate Beta 6 Adds Redesigned Traffic Light Window Controls](https://9to5mac.com/2026/08/17/macos-27-golden-gate-beta-6-features-redesigned-traffic-light-window-controls/) _2026-08-18 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ Zac Hall, 9to5Mac: macOS 27 Golden Gate beta 6 introduces redesigned traffic light window controls. The new look resembles older Mac OS X systems with more detail in each button. Nice. But these changes can’t improve fast enough for me — I am impatient. The MacOS user interface had been in a slow, steady, sad, no-fun decline for years, and then, a year ago, the bottom fell out with the disaster of… ## [MacOS 26.7 Tahoe Release Candidate Contains a Video Demonstrating Camera-Equipped AirPods in Action](https://www.macrumors.com/2026/08/17/camera-equipped-airpods-macos-26-7/) _2026-08-18 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ Oops. ★ ## [★ Follow-Up Thoughts on Watermarking Schemes for AI-Generated Text](https://daringfireball.net/2026/08/follow-up_thoughts_on_watermarking) _2026-08-18 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ I want the answers that I read to be cogent, lucid, accurate, blessedly terse — and ideally to strike a consistent tone that is pleasant to my reading ear. The genie is not going back in the bottle. ## [Apple TV Still Has No Start Date for ‘The Savant’](https://daringfireball.net/linked/2026/04/19/chastain-says-the-savant-will-be-released) _2026-08-17 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ The Savant is a political thriller series starring Jessica Chastain that was supposed to debut a year ago . Apple “postponed” it, apparently out of fear of upsetting extremist right-wing nut jobs because the show is about an undercover investigator (Chastain) hunting down extremist right-wing nut jobs. Chastain was not happy about the show being delayed. Last we heard about the show was back in… ## [No Update Since Early July Regarding Siri AI Coming to the EU, Ever](https://www.ft.com/content/807d25c3-f4ac-4402-b815-3aa91018237d) _2026-08-17 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ The Financial Times, back on July 1, with the transcontinental byline “Michael Acton in San Francisco and Barbara Moens in Brussels” (non-paywalled summaries from 9to5Mac and MacRumors ): Apple chief executive Tim Cook and EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen held “constructive” talks on Tuesday as the two sides aim to lower the temperature in a bitter dispute over the iPhone maker’s new “Siri AI.” An EU… ## [Generate Viral Hot Takes (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/hRXnzNb84FYj) _2026-08-17 · **Sponsored**_ Get platform-optimized hot takes and rebuttals to spark debate and engagement ## [The Information Profiles Cami Clark — Dario Amodei’s Wife, Ivanka Trump’s Friend, One-Time Would-Be Pornographer, and Anthropic’s ‘First Lady’](https://www.theinformation.com/articles/anthropics-first-lady-took-winding-road-top?rc=jfy0lk) _2026-08-16 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ Cory Weinberg, Jemima McEvoy, Jessica E. Lessin, and Stephanie Palazzolo, writing for the paywalled-without-gift-links The Information: As Amodei has hopscotched the globe to preach about the potential and risks of AI — from New Delhi to Davos to Sun Valley — Clark has almost always been near his side. Several people who know the couple describe Clark as Amodei’s emotional ballast, someone he has… ## [★ Anthropic’s ‘Watermark’ Text Adulteration in Claude Is a Perversion of Writing](https://daringfireball.net/2026/08/anthropics_watermark_text_adulteration_in_claude_is_a_perversion_of_writing) _2026-08-16 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ It’s unacceptable for a tool to sacrifice an iota of clarity, coherence, meaning, quality, etc. for the purpose of embedding hidden clues within the text to suggest its provenance. The idea that anything other than \*my\* needs should factor into the generation of text \*for me\* is patently offensive. ## [‘Anthropic’s Weak Watermarks Appease a Weak Law’](https://blog.j11y.io/2026-08-12_Anthropics-weak-watermarks-appease-a-weak-law/) _2026-08-16 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ James Padolsey, on the Claude-text-watermarking-to-comply-with-an-EU-regulation imbroglio: The same thought that led to this law could have applied to calculators at the time of their inception, had their outputs revealed themselves through artefacts. Thankfully, a sum borne of the brain is treated no differently from one produced by a calculator. Likewise with spellcheckers. To make assistance… ## [Trump Administration ‘Not in Favor’ of Apple Using Chinese RAM](https://www.wsj.com/tech/apple-china-memory-chip-plan-57773a83?st=vfe1SA) _2026-08-16 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ The Wall Street Journal (gift link): To help alleviate the supply crunch, Apple is looking to Chinese manufacturers. “The Trump administration is not in favor of that,” Lutnick said in an interview after touring an Apple manufacturing facility in Houston. There have to be “other solutions to the memory issue, but it’s not great American companies using Chinese memory.” Asked if he has relayed that… ## [XCancel — An Unofficial Twitter/X Mirror](https://xcancel.com/about) _2026-08-16 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ XCancel: XCancel is an instance of Nitter. Nitter is a free and open source alternative Twitter front-end focused on privacy and performance. The source is available on GitHub at https://github.com/zedeus/nitter \[...\] Using an instance of Nitter (hosted on a VPS for example), you can browse Twitter without JavaScript while retaining your privacy. In addition to respecting your privacy, Nitter is… ## [Drata](https://drata.com/daring) _2026-08-15 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ My thanks to Drata for sponsoring last week at DF. Their message is short and sweet: Leverage autonomous AI agents to automate compliance, manage internal and third-party risk, and continuously prove your security posture. ★ ## [Trump's New Punitive Measures Toward NATO Allies](https://kathleenweber.substack.com/p/trumps-new-punitive-measures-toward) _2026-08-15 · As Time Goes By_ by Shankar Narayan ## [★ You Don’t Need to Worry About Scratching Your iPhone Camera Lenses](https://daringfireball.net/2026/08/iphone_camera_lens_scratch_resistance) _2026-08-14 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ The exposed lens covers are made of sapphire, not glass, and are thus incredibly scratch resistant. And even if, somehow, do you pick up a scratch on a lens cover, it almost certainly won’t affect image quality at all. ## [Google’s ‘Material 3’ Design Write-Up Is 93.3 Percent Embarrassing](https://design.google/library/expressive-material-design-google-research) _2026-08-14 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ This page from Google Design on their “Material 3” UI language came to my attention after my snarky post about the ungainly new to-do app they bizarrely bragged about on Twitter/X this week. I don’t think this “Material 3” page is new — I think it’s a few years old — but I’d never seen it before. First, it’s crazy that (in desktop browsers with a mouse cursor) they change the I-beam cursor for… ## [Ceramic Shield 2 Is the Real Deal](https://www.tomsguide.com/phones/iphones/iphone-17-and-iphone-air-durability-testing-heres-how-the-new-iphones-stand-up-to-bending-scratching-and-dropping) _2026-08-13 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ Philip Michaels, writing last September for Tom’s Guide: iPhone 17 torture test videos done by JerryRigEverything indicate that Ceramic Shield 2 certainly resists scratching, with scratch testing leaving only light scratches at level 7 on the Mohs scale of hardness. Scratches typically show up on glass at levels 5 or 6 on that scale. “Ceramic Shield 2 is indeed the best we’ve ever seen,”… ## [Pirate.io on Google Play (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/hBqP5C8Ptk23) _2026-08-13 · **Sponsored**_ Open the Pirate.io listing on Google Play to view the app’s details. ## [Google Design Pisses Its Pants on Twitter/X](https://x.com/googledesign/status/2087195277094695096) _2026-08-13 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ A few years ago I’d have looked at this post and maybe leaned toward the idea that a precocious 8th grader somewhere hacked into the @GoogleDesign Twitter account and tried to pass off their little to-do app as having come from Google’s design team. But this is apparently real. I almost hope it’s AI slop and that there aren’t any human designers there who think anything in this app has appropriate… ## [Wait?!?! How Were the Polls This Far Off?](https://kathleenweber.substack.com/p/wait-how-were-the-polls-this-far) _2026-08-12 · As Time Goes By_ by Josh Marshall, Founder, Talking Points Memo ## [Joanna Stern on the Pixel 11 ‘HiLight’ Notification Light](https://thenewthings.com/p/the-new-pixel-feature-i-want-on-my-iphone?gift_content=e9bf3ebd-db33-4ee5-91b0-84d7acac3263) _2026-08-12 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ Joanna Stern, writing at The New Things (gift link): I used to love the blinking notification light on my BlackBerry, and later my Droid 2. It was a simple way to know I had a message without actually looking at my messages. Then BlackBerry let you customize the color, and it was a rainbow dream. Google’s HiLight takes it a step further by letting you assign different colors to VIP contacts. So… ## [Google Introduces ‘Camera Looks’ With Pixel 11 Phones](https://www.theverge.com/tech/978084/google-camera-looks-interview-computational-photography) _2026-08-12 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ David Imel, The Verge: But in our current moment, the photos people are drawn to are not flawless — and that’s created a real problem for the people making smartphone cameras. “The gap between what two random people want from their camera is growing dramatically,” says Isaac Reynolds, who leads the Pixel camera team at Google. Some people want a perfectly optimized photo, Reynolds says. “But… ## [TechCrunch on Google’s Pixel 11 Lineup](https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/12/pixel-11-has-few-hardware-changes-and-more-gemini/) _2026-08-12 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ Ivan Mehta, TechCrunch: With this year’s Pixel 11 series launch, Google is thinking more agentic AI to complete your tasks. With Gemini, U.S.-based users will be able to order groceries, book rides, or get coffee, for instance. Plus, Gemini can call businesses on users’ behalf for table reservations or appointments. Google said that users can take over or stop tasks at any point in time and also… ## [Hands-On With Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold](https://www.engadget.com/2235294/google-pixel-11-pro-fold-hands-on/) _2026-08-12 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ Sam Rutherford, writing for Engadget: Granted, the P11 Pro Fold still includes IP68 dust and water resistance, which is better than what you get on the Z Fold 8 line (IP48). But after making an absolute tank of a foldable phone with last year’s model, I said Google really needed to cut weight and thickness this generation, and it just hasn’t. Instead, it seems like Google has leaned even more into… ## [Google’s Pixel Watch 5](https://www.theverge.com/tech/978094/pixel-watch-5-hands-on-made-by-google-gemini-wearables-smartwatch) _2026-08-12 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ Victoria Song, The Verge: The $399 Google Pixel Watch 5 isn’t about the hardware. Sure, there’s a new satin pyrite case finish, a few new strap colors, and a Steph Curry Special Edition. Under the hood, there’s a slightly faster Qualcomm processor and an itty-bitty battery bump. There’s a $50 price hike from last year, too, because the Pixel Watch 5 isn’t immune to RAMageddon — none of us are.… ## [Amazon Is Spiting Customers With Unhelpful Order Confirmation Emails](https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/977733/amazon-order-emails-google-gmail-ai-agents-data) _2026-08-12 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ Mia Sato, The Verge: Earlier this summer, Amazon customers began noticing that emails related to their online orders looked sparse: Order confirmation emails didn’t name specific items anymore, and instead listed only item categories. “Your Beauty item is confirmed!” an email about my retainer cleaning tablets read. Shoppers have posted other iterations of the redacted emails as well: “ Ordered: 1… ## [App Store Scam of the Week: ‘TabControl Extension’ for Safari](https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/2026/8/4.html) _2026-08-12 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ Jeff Johnson: These purported reviews, all but one of which is 5 stars, are all in English. Yet none of them is in the US App Store. I also looked at other English-speaking countries such as Australia and Canada but found no reviews. Also suspicious is that the name of every reviewer was a first name followed by an initial for the last name. If you’ve ever looked through App Store user reviews,… ## [Reed Jobs Tells a Neuroscience Story](https://x.com/sabrinahalper/status/2086964813788258588?s=46) _2026-08-12 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ Watch this. No words needed, everyone can feel it. Genes are a hell of a thing. ★ ## [Real SIMs for AI Agents (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/sMT4eO85tIPw) _2026-08-12 · **Sponsored**_ Pass 2FA and verifications with real carrier numbers via our API. ## [Nature Is Healing](https://mastodon.social/@BasicAppleGuy/117073366339407186) _2026-08-12 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ Basic Apple Guy: Apple just dropped the hardest icon glow-up for the new Chess icon in macOS 27 Beta 5. This is not just a tweak or small improvement. This is the difference between total shit and a really nice icon. ★ ## [The Economist: ‘How to Spot AI Writing’](https://www.economist.com/culture/2026/07/30/how-to-spot-ai-writing?giftId=NzBlNTc2OGItMDgxNS00N2EzLWE4NmUtZDgzZmE4Y2FkM2Mw) _2026-08-11 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ The Economist (‘twas a gift link, but alas, I guess gift views have been used up — here’s an archive link in case the gift link is vexing you): You can discover AI’s hallmarks by comparing the writing of man and machine. To do this you need a baseline that is distinctive and familiar. The Economist turned to prose that we’re sure is human and that readers will recognise: our own. We designed a… ## [Alex Micek on BMW’s iDrive ‘Special Surprises’](https://tumbledry.org/2026/08/07/idrive_ads) _2026-08-11 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ Alex Micek: In the future, I will feel angry if my car strands me on the side of the road. I will feel angry if the motor brushes fail expectedly. I will feel angry if it leaks water. By contrast, I don’t feel anger when the car tricks me into seeing an advertisement. Instead, I feel a deep, smothering, let-down at the promise of futurism. Bottomless despair is probably inappropriate; a symptom of… ## [BMW Probably Paid Sony for the Spider-Man Dashboard Ads, Not the Other Way Around](https://www.press.bmwgroup.com/global/article/detail/T0459622EN/bmw-brings-modern-mobility-to-the-sony-pictures-film-%E2%80%9Cspider-man%E2%84%A2:-brand-new-day%E2%80%9D?language=en) _2026-08-11 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ This didn’t occur to me but should have — BMW paid Sony to place BMWs throughout the new Spider-Man: Brand New Day movie. They’re not just in the movie but part of the story. So it’s probably the case not that Sony paid BMW to put Spider-Man animations in the dashboards of every late model BMW on the road, but that BMW offered to do it as part of the promotional deal they paid Sony. So BMW… ## [Mark Zuckerberg Posts 6,500-Word AI Essay](https://www.meta.com/thefutureisforeveryone/) _2026-08-11 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ Two weeks ago Zuckerberg published a 1,000-word essay, “ The AI Future Is for Everyone ”. This week he published an expanded 6,500-word version of the essay on Meta’s website. Somehow it almost says nothing more than the original. This tidbit, however, struck me as notable: For example, in Richland Parish, Louisiana, where Meta is building a large data center, teachers received a $50,000 bonus… ## [The Talk Show: ‘Getting the Snack Right’](https://daringfireball.net/thetalkshow/2026/08/10/ep-454) _2026-08-11 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ Chance Miller returns to the show. Topics include iOS 27’s progress over summer, live baseball in Vision Pro, the RAM crisis, Apple’s trade secret lawsuit against OpenAI and io, and the EU/DMA situation. Sponsored by: Squarespace : Save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code TALKSHOW . Factor : Healthy eating, made easy. Get 50% off and one free breakfast item per box for… ## [Netflix Has Peaked](https://sharptext.net/2026/is-netflix-washed-now/) _2026-08-11 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ Andrew Sharp, writing at Sharp Text last month after Netflix’s earnings, asking “ Is Netflix Washed Now? ”: I offer this observation as a swirl of heightened anxiety surrounds the company, so let me clarify one thing up front: I’m not predicting imminent doom. Netflix content reaches a staggering 85% of American viewers and has 325 million subscribers globally . Growth is slowing , but that’s the… ## [Anthropic Posts ‘How Claude Marks AI-Generated Content’ Without Explaining How Claude Marks AI-Generated Content](https://support.claude.com/en/articles/16266773-how-claude-marks-ai-generated-content) _2026-08-11 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ Anthropic support page: Anthropic has signed the EU AI Act’s Article 50(2) Code of Practice on Transparency of AI-Generated Content, as a provider of both generative AI models and generative AI systems. This article describes how we’re planning to put those commitments into practice, how marking works, and what its limitations are. We’ll update this article and publish more detailed technical… ## [\[Sponsor\] Drata](https://drata.com/daring) _2026-08-10 · Daring Fireball Department of Commerce · Daring Fireball_ Leverage autonomous AI agents to automate compliance, manage internal and third-party risk, and continuously prove your security posture. ★ ## [What’s New in iOS 27 Beta 5](https://9to5mac.com/2026/08/10/heres-whats-new-with-ios-27-beta-5/) _2026-08-10 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ Zac Hall at 9to5Mac has a good rundown of new features and changes in beta 5. Some app icons got tweaks (the Siri app in particular looks much cooler now), and a bunch of the existing American and British Siri speaking voices now have the Pace and Expressivity adjustment sliders. Also interesting: the OS 27 releases were stuck at beta 4 for 22 days. That’s a week longer than usual. Will Hains ( my… ## [‘Friday Night Baseball’ Will Start Broadcasting Games Live, in Apple Immersive, on Vision Pro](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/08/apple-mlb-announce-september-friday-night-baseball-schedule/) _2026-08-10 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ Apple Newsroom: For the first time, baseball fans can take in all the action of “Friday Night Baseball” live in Apple Immersive on Apple Vision Pro, leveraging 3D video recorded in 8K with a 180-degree field of view. On August 28, viewers with Vision Pro will experience the iconic Red Sox vs. Yankees rivalry from unique camera angles that place viewers right in the game, immersed in the drama of… ## [Michael Tsai on My Retraction of the Astrology/Astronomy App Store Rejection Story](https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/08/07/dark-hours-rejected-from-the-app-store/) _2026-08-10 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ Michael Tsai: I’m really unhappy about this, both for my role in spreading a false story and because I think it will hurt the cause of reforming App Review. I know there are many crazy rejections and have experienced some first-hand. This story was believable because of that well-known history and because Godier didn’t seem like a nobody trying to get attention — he was the developer of another… ## [‘The Problem With Vibe-Coded Flattery’](https://tedium.co/2026/08/09/vibe-coding-insincerity/) _2026-08-10 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ Ernie Smith at Tedium: I’m seeing email after email suggesting these users built a thing they’re truly passionate about. But if we can’t trust that this passion is real, legit, and from the heart, we’re in trouble. Take a step back. Is this thing you built a reflection of you? I think it’s fun and exciting that I’m getting a lot more emails about a lot more new apps. But a fair chunk of those… ## [The NYT and WSJ on Apple, China, and the RAM Crisis](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/10/technology/memory-chip-shortage-ai.html?unlocked_article_code=1.4VA.49f7.Qj8S541DkkOz) _2026-08-10 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ Kalley Huang, reporting from San Francisco, and Ana Swanson, from Washington, for The New York Times (gift link): Apple, which has cited the memory chip shortage for recent price increases, is working with other consumer electronics companies to push for permission to buy memory chips from China, which faces certain restrictions, seven people said. Apple was in talks in 2022 to buy memory chips… ## [WorkOS: Connect Your Agents to Your API](https://workos.com/blog/mcp-vs-rest?utm_source=daringfireball&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=q32026) _2026-08-09 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ My thanks to WorkOS for, once again, sponsoring DF last week. What’s the best way to connect AI agents to your API? REST is great for human developers; MCP serves the agents . Many teams treat REST and MCP as competing standards, and through choice or necessity, pick one. But they ought not be considered rivals. They’re separate layers. Most MCP servers just call REST internally to do the real… ## [★ Retraction: The App Store Rejection of the Week That Was, in Fact, a Correct Rejection](https://daringfireball.net/2026/08/retraction_app_store_rejection_of_the_week) _2026-08-09 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ My disdain for astrology is so utter, and my esteem for Godier’s previous work so high, that it simply never occurred to me that he might have actually made and submitted to the App Store an astrology app, let alone that he’d then feign surprise and frustration that an astrology app was rejected for being an astrology app. ## [Corrupt Minds Think Alike](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/06/business/fifa-world-cup-privatization.html?unlocked_article_code=1.3VA.4zqH.Pul7X9bQ2kv0&smid=bs-share) _2026-08-08 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ Tariq Panja, reporting for The New York Times: The five men should have been in a celebratory mood. FIFA had just pulled off a World Cup that broke records on a number of fronts. Its spectacular culmination, the final, was a day away from kickoff. But their mood was anything but jubilant. The men, a group of top directors known as the FIFA bureau of the management board, had been summoned to a… ## [Maybe ‘Steal Underpants by Blowing a Fortune on AI Tokens’ Is, in Fact, Not a Good Business Plan](https://www.404media.co/the-tokenpocalypse-is-here-companies-are-scrambling-to-stop-spending-so-much-on-ai/) _2026-08-08 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ Joseph Cox, writing for 404 Media (paywalled, sans gift links, alas): Consulting giant Accenture is trying to figure out how to stop non-technical workers from blowing through companies’ AI token budget on trivial tasks like converting PDFs to presentation slides, according to leaked audio obtained by 404 Media. Across the industry Accenture is seeing “soaring token spend,” according to the audio.… ## [Simon Willison on Blogging](https://writethatblog.substack.com/p/simon-willison-on-technical-blogging) _2026-08-07 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ Simon Willison, with Cynthia Dunlop for her tech blogger interview series (from back in January, but he just got around to linking to it so I just got around to seeing it): Any lessons learned that you want to share with the community? My number one tip for blogging is to lower your standards! Aim to hit publish while you are still actively unhappy with what you have written, because the only… ## [Google Earth Retracts AI Tool for Making Fake Satellite Images After It Was Immediately Abused Upon Release](https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/07/google-earth-releases-swiftly-retracts-ai-feature-to-make-fake-satellite-images/) _2026-08-07 · John Gruber · Daring Fireball_ Jeremy Hsu, Ars Technica: Google briefly allowed anyone to create AI-modified versions of satellite imagery available in Google Earth — before quickly reversing its decision as people shared examples of AI-generated pictures that illustrated the potential for misinformation and disinformation. Momentum ! ★